


Stories of the Second Self: Shiva’s Path

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [30]
Category: National Guard - Fandom, Urban Fantasy - Fandom, lockdown - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Captain Paul Appelbaum and a Defense Intelligence Agency operative come upon Columbus, Ohio to discover concrete and steel burning under blue flames. The city appears abandon, but Paul discovers during his reconnaissance that some residents have gone into hiding. He has to find out why and evacuate the noncombatants against the threat that is destroying everything man made.
Series: Alter Idem [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Shiva’s Path

"Captain Appelbaum," Major Craig Linton, the DIA recon team leader asked, stepping up to Paul's hip and looked up at him. "What they fuck happened here?"

Throughout Ohio it was bad, but Paul had never seen anything like blue flame infernos blazing throughout the city. "All I know is that no one outside the Guard has ordnance for this."

"What then?" Major Linton asked, waving at the devastation, "That's not the work of rioters, not at the top floors. Arson? No! This is something else. You're in this mission because you handle the weird."

Columbus was in ruins and still burning, the question was why, and Paul had no answers. "There were five companies here, and our last record was that they had things under control."

"Any chance they flipped?" Linton pressed, staring hard at Appelbaum's face.

"Wha...? No," Paul shook his head at that. "We recruited supernaturals, and kept on those who were already in the Guard. We've never had a problem with them, and honestly, we had fewer disciplinary issues with supernaturals."

"Okay," Linton appeared to accept that, and looked around while pacing, "What about vampires? Fae? We know it's not just humans losing their shit out there. Every state and U.S. territory the Pentagon still has contact with is reporting this sort of shit. We need answers."

Paul just shook his head, "I need to poke around a bit."

"You're thirteen foot, fuckin' ten," Linton pointed out the obvious, and then waved off. "No way! You're the last guy I'd send on a recon mission, even if you weren't such a hot asset."

"Can't you, like, conjure up some shit to see from your mind or something?" one of Linton's guys asked.

"If there is such a spell, I've never stumbled across it," Paul replied, still gazing at the fires on rooftops, his heavy brows working.

"How much time you gonna need?" Linton seemed to cave in, looking back up.

"I don't know," Paul answered, blinking away uncertainty, "Days maybe. Could be longer."

"Shit!" Linton spat and spun on his heel, grinding frustration into the dirt, and then did a cross between nodding and shaking his head. "Okay, four days. Four days, and I'm pulling you out. Then we go back to the Pentagon and give them whatever we got, even if it's jack shit."

"I’ll get my gear," Paul affirmed, heading back to the logistics tent he used, and started packing everything up.

After getting his pack on, Paul slung his duel weapon behind one shoulder and started toward the city. Yet, Linton stopped him.

"I read that report you submitted about the tree," Linton whispered after his other team members dispersed far enough to be out of earshot. "If I forced you to guess, would you say it's connected?"

"Major, I haven't the first...," Paul started to say.

"Paul, I said guess," Linton stopped him there, and added, "Wild-eyed, crazy as a fuckin' loon, blind goddamn guess."

"It'll sound like new age horseshit," Paul prefaced, and then raised his hands when Linton looked to interrupt Paul again before he said, "Like Mother Nature rising up to whoop our behinds for being bad kids? I'm betting that's wrong, but nothing else makes sense either."

"Four days, Paul," Linton reminded, "Answers or no, we're outta here."

"Agreed." Paul nodded, and then started off.

By the time Paul got to the edge of the city he was sure Linton would make the team scarce, so he didn't bother looking back. Instead, Paul trotted between points of cover, which for him were buildings at least two stories tall. From each he propped his modified twenty millimeter cannon over the roof to sight his next position.

So far, he saw no activity, human or supernatural people. Many roofs smoldered, and other smaller buildings were burned to the ground. Here and there, Paul saw signs of firefights. Patterns of shrapnel from stray fragmentation grenades, bullet impacts that he recognized as being three round bursts from M-4's and other 5.56 mm caliber weapons, as well as streaks of cracked holes in asphalt that he guessed were helo door gunners or larger machine guns.

Then, he caught something out of the norm for urban warfare. A scorch pattern that seemed to be radial or spherical, but didn't create any secondary fires. There were two of them, one which would've been a place of cover fire at the corner of a building.

Looking around, Paul didn't see anyone, and so trotted over to the site. Kneeling down, a lot more than humans would've had to, Paul waved his massive hand over the burn pattern and took a whiff. As a giant, Paul's sense of smell was a little better, but no so far that it was considered a super power.

"Nothing out of the ordinary for a fire," Paul muttered to himself, and pondered what it would take to make the materials here burn.

Then he tried something else, and closed his eyes while holding his palm down over the residue. "Barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam, asher natan lasekhvi vina l'havchil bein yom u'vein lailah."

Paul felt silly for uttering a traditional Jewish prayer out loud, but it worked the last time he experimented with casting. And, from this too Paul started to get a vision.

There was a writhing hissing flame, but it was blue. Paul had seen it in his own hand from the tree, but this one wasn't raw and formless. This time, it came into being for a very specific purpose.  
Once the impression faded, Paul stood and glanced further into Columbus. "Yeah, this is going to be an interesting one."

It was a short walk until buildings for buildings to be taller than himself. Paul felt a bit more secure going down major roads. He still checked windows and opened doors. Cars were discarded or crashed everywhere. He noticed one still burning, even though its paints, tires, and upholstery were incinerated completely.

Daring not to touch the steel, Paul pulled out a pair of two-handed bolt cutters he'd reworked into a set of snips for himself. Touching the tip of the sheers to the metal, produced a collapse like sagging wax.

"Holy shit," Paul breathed, "The steel is burning."

And yet, his cutters weren't melted from the contact, or even warm. One eye squinting at the mystery, Paul was distracted by the sound of a child moaning.

His first reflex was to duck behind the car, but that would've been pointless at Paul's size. Frequently throwing looks down every road and parkway access, Paul tiptoed toward the source.

Despite Linton's assessment, Paul was fair at sneaking around without making too much noise. The treads of his boots yielded differently from conventional combat boots, impressing him at how quickly the Ohio National Guard improvised ADU's and other issue for giants.

The moans came from a parking garage, so Paul got on his hands and knees to take a peek. "Please, let there be no one waiting for a good sniping target."

"Momma," came the child's cry, as if locked in a dream.

"Damn," Paul mouthed to himself silently, as he went for a Maglite.

In his hand it was like a pen light, and with it he scanned under cars and columns. Then his light played over something that shimmered. "What's that?"

At first it didn't move, but with another restless shuffle Paul realized he was seeing an angel's wing, just that the size wasn't quite right.

"Okay," Paul whispered to himself, "In I go."

He continued on his hands and knees, the latter having pads strapped on that he was careful to keep from cracking against the cement. An overhead sprinkler caught his collar, forcing him to stop and reach back with a finger to unhook it.

Scooting around, Paul changed his approach and then froze on the sight of the sleeping child. "Never saw a kid angel."

The child jolted awake, and immediately look at Paul with a fright.

Backing away quickly, Paul realized how it looked to child who might well have been read giant stories by their parents. "Whoa, whoa! It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're not the bad fairies?" the child asked, her voice almost a whimper.

"No," Paul answered, and smiled warmly, "I'm definitely not a fairy, bad or otherwise. My name's Paul."

"Paul Bunyan?" the girl, who looked about six, asked.

"Of course," Paul remarked to himself with a laugh, "Why didn't I think of that?" and then back to the girl said, "Appelbaum."

"Are you a soldier?" the girl asked.

"Among other things, yeah." Paul nodded.

At that moment, the girl dashed over to him, her wings out as if she were ready to take off. Instead, she ran into his forearm and hugged him as much as she could, what with Paul's tree trunk wrist.

"It's alright now," Paul patted her gently with two fingers. "You're safe. I got'cha."

She started crying, making Paul look back to the entrance in case anyone might hear, and then asked her, "You got a family? Maybe we can find your mom and dad?"

"I don't know where they are," she bawled out.

"We're going to find them," Paul caught himself saying with a wince, realizing the new mission he'd given himself.

Her name was Mia, and she had no idea where her parents were. Given the state's history and current state of affairs, Paul feared the worst for a black family struggling to survive with other desperate or angry people out there.

However, Mia enjoyed riding on Paul's back, clinging to his pack frame with the rope seat he improvised for her. After another two days, he found more people.

They were huddled in another skyscraper, but pressed their faces to windows on seeing Paul coming down the road. Three people then showed up at the inside of the entrance doors, the woman among them hopping with her hands to her mouth.

"Do you know those people?" Paul asked, pointing.

"Momma!" Mia cried out.

It prompted Paul to carefully get her out of the rope seat, and then she jumped from his hands to glide to the road. Mia then sprinted to the door, and flung it open to be enveloped in the arms of the woman, a man, and a teenage boy that could've easily been Mia's brother.

Paul knelt down both to give assurance to the family, but also in case anyone with ill will heard Mia's outburst. The family waved him over urgently.

"Thank you so much, for bring my baby back!" the woman said, crying with relief.

"Thank you sir," the father echoed, "Who are you?"

"Captain Paul Appelbaum, Ohio National Guard," he answered and looked around the street again. "What happened here?"

"It started with some other church group," the teen said, but turned to his dad without finishing.

"They-- they were upset at the supernaturals," the dad explained.

"But it's just Mia," Paul said, realizing none of them had wings.

"Yeah, I know," the father affirmed, "We were trying to get her out, and then this other group started up."

"What other group?" Paul implored.

"They killed the soldiers here," the mother revealed, "Said they were going to return everything to the way it's supposed to be."

"What other group?" Paul repeated, searching their faces. "I have to know. It's my mission."

"Shit!" the father hissed, and ushered the family back into the bowls of the building. "You gotta run!"

Paul saw another angel flapping into view like an overseeing deity more than a dozen floors above the street. From the same corner a number of humans, Fae, and angels all strode onto the road.

The Fae with eleven-point antlers pointed to Paul with hate in his eyes. "See the scourge of technology! The defiance to Gaia!"

"Hey!" Paul called out, rising with his hands up. "It's alright. I'm on your side. What's happening around here?"

"Everything that defiles the Earth will be purged," the Fae leader said, "You, giant, can discard all you know and live in harmony or you can die here and now."

"Is that what happened to everyone else?" Paul asked, hoping the Fae wouldn’t infer that he hadn't just made contact with survivors.

"Vampires, werewolves, and anyone disgracing the soil with anything artificial will be expunged."

Paul realized how this was going to go, and slowly slipped a thumb to the strap of his weapon. However, the angel above caught the gesture and started waving hand gestures, that dispelled the mystery right there.

In a loud sprint, Paul made a dive for another side road. Not a moment too soon, as a blue fireball roared down to the street and blasted out into an expanding circular wave of flames.

Behind a building as cover, Paul recoiled when another fireball and something else he didn't see collided into the building corner.

"Yeah, okay," Paul nodded, his mood darkening, "Magic harnessed as a weapon? Guess it was bound to happen. Time to rain down a different sort of air support."

He'd tested it out on an arty gunnery range, and wasn't impressed with the result, however that was before The Gift. Paul started reciting a passage from the Book of Kings One about Elijah.

Daring to peek around the corner again, still repeating the verses, Paul sized up his targets. Storm clouds gathered overhead, and then he risked holding his right hand out in the symbol for Hamsa.

"Please don't let this hurt the innocent," Paul whispered, closing his eyes, yet still able to sense exact locations of the street mob.

Twice, tremendous cracks exploded with flashes Paul saw despite having squeezed his eyes shut. He heard yelling and screaming, and dared look at the aftermath. The Fae and the Angel that once hovered, were both smoking heaps on the street, and the rest of the group fled. The building where others hid out was unscathed.

Paul leaded against the building and whispered to the clouds. "Thank you."

Within twenty-four hours, Paul had organized the survivors and whatever supplies they could carry into an exodus out of Columbus. Major Linton was stunned by who Paul brought back, but didn't question it.

While Linton called in logistical support, Paul studied the city from afar. He honestly couldn't say if God, or any god was involved, though a little voice in the back of his mind figured that there was one name to consider. Shiva, the Destroyer and Transformer. It was the end of one world, and the beginning of another.

He doubted it would be a harmonious new age, but Paul committed himself to doing his part.


End file.
